Others are missing, too. It appears a certain redhead guitarrist never turned up to carry out his civil duty as a man (should be either obligatory or voluntary to begin with, as far as I'm concerned).
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The Meme of the Day:
The Acronym generator (http://www.lokalisointi.org/cgi-bin/fun/acronym/akronyymi.cgi), which defines me as follows.
S.P.L.E.N.E.T.I.C.:
Surullisen Pissapäinen ja Lihava Eksentrikko joka Nipottaa, Elostelee Taitavasti ja Innoittavasti ja C-koodaa.
I'm speechless.
I have been deposed from my throne of The Bad Teenager of the family.
Today my little brother, seventeen years old, did something *very* unexpected. I came home from BodyCombat (yes, She was there, too) and found that someone has really tried to get me on the phone: four different people had called me. I called back to my mother, and learned that my brother had went to school as any other day, spent the day at school as a good student should and got off somewhere at noon. Everything as usual so far. But here's the twist: instead of going home he had apparently got on a bus going to the nearest train station and then he had gone to Oulu with the train; all this without notifying a single person, not even my little sister with whom he's much closer than with me. My parents had, surprisingly enough, wondered where the hell he was and eventually called the police as well as every single person he might have gone to, including me. But he had gone to some church worker who used to work for the Lutheran church of my previous home town earlier. He didn't answer his phone until my uncle, his godfather, who happens to be a police officer, called him. So now he's in Oulu with the priest’s family until further notice.
I'm just not very prone to trust my mother to tell the truth. I kept asking what the hell had happened there to make him do something like this, but she kept repeating that everything has been as usual. Bullocks! My brother is a sensible person, he wouldn't just take off like this without a bloody good reason. I mean, he's among the top of his class, and now he's going to skip two days from school! You can tell me I told you so when I finally figure out what it was that our mockery of a father did when he was drunk. I don't know yet what it was or even when, but there's got to be something. Did he hit him? He hit me, and I was a girl, dammit! Or maybe he just kept going on with that crap he always goes when he's drunk and just crossed the line some day. And now, after dwelling on that something in his mind for days my brother just had enough, and he became so fed up with it that he needed to leave like that. Something tells me he's going to continue on the same path as me and my little sister and move put from home at the age of seventeen. And I would also assume that the tradition of psychologists' involvement (or priests', similar function sometimes) also continues.
The timing, I have to say was somewhat peculiar: it's Mother's Day in two weeks. Is this some kind of a statement from him? "Fucking happy Mother's Day!"
Today is (or was about an hour ago) the 488th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death. The quote above was found in one of his journals in form of a riddle; the sentence was hidden inside notes and other musical symbols. To those not so familiar with Italian (the most beautiful language in the world, as far as I'm concerned) it reads "Only love makes me remember, it alone stirs my heart". Today I've been thinking of that line as I've been listening to Roxette ("what's she like, when you're making love and stars are in her eyes, when you're looking for the answers in her smile...") and thinking of Her. If She says anything to me, if it was only a soundless greeting, I fall for Her all over again. I'm not sure if I even want to let it go, though. The one time earlier this spring I was about to (after the straightness obstacle) I felt so empty afterwards, as if I had lost a physical part of myself and felt some kind of a psychological phantom pain. I suppose this love, albeit unrewarding one, consoles me, in a way. I don't think I'm ready to give that up just yet, not until I'm open enough to have an actual relationship with someone.
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The Meme of the Day:
Virtual resurrection from http://paavo.vuodatus.net/blog/481297.
Here is a meme from six feet under. Bring ten artists back to life virtually.
1. Simone de Beauvoir
If I had the possibility to go back in time, I would want to meet her; if not speak to her but at least see her. There is, however, a problem: her resurrection is in striking conflict with Existentialism, which would make me consider this particular resurrection thrice.
2. Leonardo da Vinci
He would fix about half of this world's scientific problems as soon as he had brought his scientific knowledge up to date.
3. Roald Dahl
I wouldn't mind more stories like "Landlady".
4. J.R.R. Tolkien
There are about a million fans ready to read the version of Silmarillion finished by him, including me. An maybe he could complete the Elvish languages, too, so they could actually be used, like Klingon.
5. Douglas Adams
The author resurrections continue and the explanation is exactly the same as with Dahl.
6. Anton Szandor LaVey
For the sake of personal interest; he could also develop the Satanic philosophy further.
7. Oscar Wilde
I would welcome his sarcastic remarks of this world with arms wide open. And a writer like him would deserve to get a taste of this world were he wouldn't be thrown behind bars for being homosexual.
8. Caligula
Just to make the yellow press busy, although I'm not sure whether he was actually an artist. Well, I suppose the basic education in ancient Greek included artistic subjects to some extent.
9. Mozart
He could probably stir up a scandal or two but mainly I'm interested in the musical aspect.
10. Hitler
Before entering politics, he was actually a painter. If he were brought to this world at that age, would he turn out to be the same murderer as he did decades ago?
How will you die? - http://www.quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=8960&first=yes
“Your death will be by disappearing, probably a camping trip gone wrong or an evening hike you never returned from. Always remember that one guy who was hiking alone and got in a rock slide. He could have died, but he cut his own hand off to save himself. Don't end up like him (or worse, dead).”
Disappear 80%
Poison 67%
Suicide 53%
Accident 47%
Disease 47%
Gunshot 40%
Cut Throat 33%
Bomb 33%
Natural Causes 33%
Drowning 33%
Stabbed 33%
Suffocated 27%
Eaten 7%
And to continue around this morbid subject…
When will you die? - http://www.testimaa.com/testi.php?t=kuolema
“Kuolet 28.9.2055.”
And a second opinion, while I’m at it, from http://www.deathclock.com/ which says I’ll die on Friday, November 16, 2040 and, as I’m writing this, seconds slip through the narrow passage of the hourglass of my life, leaving me 1,058,596,525 seconds to live.
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Woody Allen:
"Death is one of the few things that can be done as easily as lying down. The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you."
T.S. Eliot:
“It is worth dying to find out what life is.”
Edgar Allan Poe:
“The boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins?”
Mark Twain:
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Euripides:
“No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.“
Joshua Bruns:
“The trouble with quotes about death is that 99.999 percent of them are made by people who are still alive.”
- - -
I continued to think of death even further and I ended up re-visiting one site where you can design a rudimentary version of your dream tombstone (http://www.hautakivi.net/index.php?sivu=suunnitele1), “rudimentary” being the operative word. So, I now have a sketch and the essential information of the tombstone I would like to have some day. It is quite unconventional, I’ve ever seen only one stone with a pentagram before. And I am well aware of the fact I’m not Wiccan, but then again it is the things the pentagram symbolises to me that matter. The bronze decoration also has to be specially made; it will be expensive but I will *not* tolerate a single Christian symbol above my grave. The people left behind hopefully are able to acknowledge that fact instead of hiding behind the excuse of saving my soul; I understand that people who are going to see the stone will be alive but what is above my grave is the one thing to represent me as what I was when I was alive, not what others wanted me to be.
But if you wish to have a less serious approach to the matter, write your own tombstone at http://journals.aol.com/johnmscalzi/bytheway/entries/2006/07/19/write-your-own-tombstone/6221. I would show you mine if I knew how to make it smaller and turn the picture into a file lepakkolaakso approves. I wrote "The FBI's most unwanted. F.M. Luder." What a surprise.
I came to wonder why we are celebrating vappu. According to the omniscient Wikipedia, the first of May is adopted from Sweden, which in turn adopted it from the British. It would appear that the reason for most Finns to get a day off from work or school to get completely wasted is due to a British catholic saint called Walburga whose bones were transported back to her home country centuries after her death on 1.5., thus making it her feast day in England and therefore also in Scandinavia. I really do prefer the pagan view, Beltane, on this matter. Having a Lutheran holiday is one thing, but a Catholic one... seems awfully distant for someone brought up in Finland where Catholics are undoubtedly in the minority.
And then there is this business with putting on the student cap on statues. Mainly the targets tend to be females (Helsinki, Rauma, Tampere, Turku), or writers (Jyväskylä, Kajaani, Oulu, Vaasa), or animals (Lahti, Lappeenranta, Savonlinna), or a combination of two of these (Pori; the bear appears to be a female). Kuopio is the only town in Finland I know for sure put a cap on a male statue. But why? Why put a cap on a statue on vappu? Whose cap? What happens to the cap. Probably gets mysteriously lost during the few veiled hours before dawn. I know the tradition comes from Sweden but I couldn't track down the origins and motivations there.
I’m frustrated. One day off my usual routine and I have nothing interesting to do. There’s very little things to do in my town, as far as I know anyway, as far as absolutists are in question. Maybe I should just dig up that cap of mine and at least pretend I’m having the time of my life. Or I could leave it be and mope around at home, maybe go to the market square some time during the day see what they have there; at least they have Celesty there, I just don’t know when. Or I could read; after all I still have that Nathanael West waiting.
